While my first attempt at leaving for China was a total disaster, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it gave me the time I needed so badly to finish getting ready and take care of work arrangements. Monday, June 23rd resulted in me feeling much better about leaving the country for so long.  Typical work traffic on the way to SFO started to really stress me out, but I made it will plenty of time and arrived at my gate early.  The flight to Seattle was only an hour and a half long and the sceanery was beautiful.

I had a brief layover where I continued to take care of miscelaneous work items (yay for having an Android phone!) before boarding the plane to Shanghai.  The flight was over eleven hours long but much nicer than I expected.  There was plentey of  food, free alcohol, and many American and Chinese movies to choose from.  I was sitting next to a young guy who was an exchange student in Seattle going back to his family in Hangzhou for the summer.  We had several awkward conversations in mixed Chinese and English, mostly English though because his English was much better than my Chinese!

When I arrived at the Shanghai airport it was much less crowded than I expected, but still a little confusing.  I went searching for a ATM, but when I found one my bank card wouldn’t work, even though I had made travel arrangements!  Fortunately I had brought cash just in case something like that happened.  During my ATM search I found a food court with a Bruce Lee themed fast food restuarant, quite amusing.

Aftering changing my money I headed toward the metro station to take the subway.  Getting a ticket was pretty easy and I didn’t need to wait long for the train.  During the ride I got many odd looks from other riders and there was only one other foreigner around.  The ride was long and I had to change lines twice but it wasn’t that bad.